Getting a new TV can be both a blessing and a curse. It can mean redecorating a room or at the very least figuring out what kind of speakers will best complement it. You guys tend to want big tower speakers that can overwhelm a space while us girls want something that's, uh, more attractive.
If you wonder what the telcos will be like years from now, when they're raking in the cash from video services, get a load of the way they behaved last month. As soon as the Federal Communications Commission removed some regulatory charges from consumer DSL bills, BellSouth and Verizon quickly tried to add them back and pocket the cash. The deleted charges had gone into the Universal Service Fund, which was originally designed to subsidize phone service in rural areas, and later extended to nurture Internet access in schools. BellSouth DSL customers had paid $2.97 per month into the USF, while Verizon DSL customers had paid $1.25-2.83 (depending on speed of service), until the FCC reclassified DSL and eliminated the fees to give consumers a break. Thereupon BellSouth swiftly imposed a "regulatory cost recovery fee" of $2.97, while Verizon added a "supplier surcharge" of $1.20-2.70. This breathtakingly opportunistic pickpocketing of consumers, greasily interlarded with corporate doublespeak, so enraged FCC chair Kevin Martin that he instantly threatened to send official letters demanding an explanation. He didn't have to send them—BellSouth quickly backed off and Verizon followed a few days later. They've got a lot on their regulatory wish lists, with BellSouth awaiting approval for its absorption into AT&T, and all the telcos eagerly awaiting the replacement of municipal franchise agreements for video service with more relaxed federal and state regulation. If this is what they act like when they're on their best behavior, just imagine what they'll be like at their worst.
Finally! The studios have wised up and realized that if they don't offer movies as electronic bits you can legally download and watch whenever you like, savvy computer users will get them anyway.
CLUTTER CUTTER Everybody loves HDTV, but enough with all the cables already! Pioneer feels your pain, providing no fewer than four HDMI inputs on its new flagship receiver, the VSX-84TXSi. The Cadillac of connectors delivers both HD video and audio, so you can hook up everything from your high-def cable box to your HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc player and still not get tangled up.
TIPPING THE SCALER The absolute best that high-def video can look is the en vogue 1080p format, which floods your screen with more than 2 million pixels as often as every sixtieth of a second (assuming you have a 1080p-resolution TV).
Getting a new TV can be both a blessing and a curse. It can mean redecorating a room or at the very least figuring out what kind of speakers will best complement it. You guys tend to want big tower speakers that can overwhelm a space while us girls want something that's, uh, more attractive.
